Making Homemade (Mutter) Paneer (cheese curds) with an Indian Mother

To my surprise, making homemade paneer from whole milk and vinegar or lemon juice is a very straightforward and fairly simple process. I will provide the detailed directions below that I was taught by a native Indian for making both the paneer itself and a sauce that goes along to make mutter (peas) paneer or similar dishes. Paneer is an Indian style cheese, similar to raw cheese curds or cottage cheese without the wet part. It resembles tofu in appearance.

Making the Paneer

Ingredients: Gallon whole milk, 2 teaspoons vinegar or 3 tsps lemon juice, 2 tsp salt. Yields about 2 cups paneer

• Bring the milk to a boil
• When boiling, add 2 tsp vinegar and remove from heat
• Let rest / curdle (visible separation should occur within 2-3 minutes, if not, put it back on the burner)
• When it appears fully separated, strain through cheesecloth and press out excess moisture (be careful not to over squeeze, it will be very soft at this point)
• Press the paneer in the cloth between heavy objects for 3-4 hours to remove moisture
• When done pressing, cut the solid block into pieces
• Put them in boiling water with 1 tsp salt for about 10 minutes, turning off the heat after 5 minutes.
• Refrigerate over night and they are ready to go!

Making the Sauce or Making Mutter Paneer

Ingredients: 4 medium tomatoes yielding 2 cups grated, 2 tbs oil, 1 tsp cumin seed, 2 tbs grated fresh ginger, 2 tsp turmeric, 4 tsp coriander, 1 tsp garam masala, 2 bay leaves, 1 tbs yogurt /cream/ cashew paste, salt, 2 cups paneer, mutter/peas, extra tomato sauce as desired

• Use a grater on the tomatoes to separate the pulp from the skins, should yield about 2 cups
• Peel and grate the fresh ginger, yield about 2 tbs
• Heat the oil in a deep pot
• When hot, add the cumin seeds. They should pop if it’s hot enough.
• Add other spices and tomatoes. Mind the splatter.
• Bring all to a boil and simmer 5 minutes before adding precooked peas, paneer and yogurt
• Simmer together another 5 minutes
• If not enough sauce add extra milk and 4 oz tomato sauce
• When the oil starts to separate, it’s done. Remove bay leaves before serving with rice or roti

Book Review | Wisconsin Supper Club Cookbook by Mary Bergin

In Wisconsin Supper Club Cookbook, author Mary Bergin takes readers on a tour around approximately 40 local supper clubs. She addresses the question of what a supper club is and serves up historical facts in a very palatable manner, incorporating them within chapters on each restaurant. Added fact boxes at the end of select chapters serve to highlight other related notables. Bergin includes several recipes for most of the included establishments, spanning the whole meal from drinks and appetizers to main courses, sides and desserts. You won’t find many healthy or vegan recipes here though. These foods are more about tradition and include some heavy ingredients, but perhaps some at home tweaking will yield a family favorite. Although some great photos are included, an absence of captions make some images hard to decipher. The photo quality leaves many images visually less than appealing and many appear to be amateur shots. In the introduction the author mentions there being over a hundred supper clubs in Wisconsin, but only about 40 are included. A full list would have made for a treat of an appendix. Overall, the book was enjoyable and is recommended to Wisconsinites interested in local tradition and history or out-of-towners wanting to learn about supper club culture. Check out this book from a library near you.

Homemade Chilled Beet Soup (Borscht) like I ate in Lithuania

Last fall when I was in Eastern Europe I had an excellent borscht (šaltibarščiai) at Senoji Trobele in Vilnius, Lithuania. This restaurant is ranked 7th in the city on Trip Advisor and many reviewers rave about the chilled beet soup. I tried it, was impressed, and like many other foods that I sampled during my travels, missed it when I was back stateside.

Senoji Trobele’s Chilled Beet Soup <šaltibarščiai>

With this craving, I began googling. I found a recipe on Food Network’s website for Summer Borscht by Ina Garten from Barefoot Contessa that sounded like what I was looking for.

I made a few minor tweaks and used the following ingredients: fresh beets, salt, low sodium chicken broth, natural sour cream, vanilla yogurt, sugar, lemon juice, pickling vinegar, black pepper, English cucumber and fresh dill. I also wanted a puréed soup, so I batch blended the ingredients at the end.

The hardest part of this process was finding enough fresh beets at the grocery store to have two full pounds of beets after removing all but the inner fresh cooked beet. The preparation was straightforward and simple and the recipe made enough for two to enjoy several meals. The soup I ate in Vilnius was served with crisp warm potato slices, but I substituted fried plantains (tostones). They were great for dipping in the cold soup and provided a nice contrast of temperature and texture.

My homemade chilled beet soup (borscht)

The soup was a major hit with all four people who ate it. I would make this recipe again for sure. Happy Cooking!

Book Review | Monster’s Chef : a novel by Jervey Tervalon

Mr. Gibson has lost his wife and his NYC restaurant to his cocaine addiction and landed himself in the slammer. Nine months later, in a halfway house, he makes a personal connection that lands him a new gig (on parole) in Southern California as personal chef to Monster, a Michael Jackson-like, eccentric celebrity musician. Gibson signs a non-disclosure agreement and lives in a bungalow on the secured grounds. As Monster and Gibson become more acquainted, and other slightly off-base characters appear, Gibson has to choose who to trust and how to proceed – especially when a dead body turns up outside his bungalow.

I grabbed Monster’s Chef off the new fiction shelves at the library. The jacket description sounded alright, the book wasn’t too thick and I figured I’d quit if it didn’t work out. Tervalon’s writing style here is easy to read, though some characters seem unable to explain themselves. The characters are imaginable, but as other critics have mentioned, fairly flat. The idea of a rich music mogul holed up in a private mansion with a moat on his own mountain was interesting, but the suspense that was promised never really arrived. This book was okay, but when I’d finished it, I questioned whether it had been worth the time. Have a read from a library near you.

Friday Fish Fry? Try the Great Lakes Whitefish

In Wisconsin we know that there aren’t too many things better on a Friday than a tasty fish fry. Restaurants all over the state do a booming business serving up fried fish on Friday evenings. Of course there is a bit of history behind the fish fry tradition that you can read about here from UW-Madison folklorist Dr. Janet Gilmore, but what about starting your own family fish fry tradition at home?

Recently published by Michigan Sea Grant, “Wild Caught and Close to Home: Selecting and Preparing Great Lakes Whitefish” offers more than 50 recipes from credentialed chefs and whitefish specialists to help you get started making your own fish at home. For those who are interested in healthier options than frying, it also offers ideas for steaming, poaching, smoking, grilling and pickling, to name a few. It also offers a brief history of whitefish.

The Water Library is acquiring this book,  but if you just can’t wait, check out these other books we have to offer on preparing fish. You can check this website for further information on Great Lakes whitefish.